Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Pronunciation (lighthearted)

62 replies

overnightangel · 04/10/2018 17:10

AIBU tocthink the following...?
TORTOISE is “Torr-Toyyssss” not “Torr-Tuss”
TONGUE is “Tung” not “Tonnggg”

OP posts:
SleepingStandingUp · 04/10/2018 20:37

You're all screwing with my brain.

Tor tuss is odd.
There is only one pronunciation of paw pour pour pore
The shortening of mother is Mom
Scones rhyme with cones and stonea

Aintnothingbutaheartache · 04/10/2018 20:48

There is no ‘proper’ unless you are referring to RP ie Received Pronunciation in which case it’s definitely tort-tuss and tung.
You really have to consider regional dialect and accents.

Munchmallow · 04/10/2018 20:57

What I wonder is if you pronounce poor, pour, pore and paw all the same, how on earth did you learn to spell them?

Ontopofthesunset · 04/10/2018 21:13

They mean different things, so they look different and that's how you learn to spell them. There must be homophones in every regional pronunciation, I suppose - like 'are' and 'our' which are not homophones for me but seem to be for lots of people.

MemoryOfSleep · 04/10/2018 21:27

Tor tuss and tong. Midlands. Also skown, not skon. Pore, paw, poor and pour sound identical. There is only one u sound. Our sounds like hour, not are.

MyLearnedFriend · 04/10/2018 22:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

possumgoddess · 04/10/2018 22:25

Tortuss. Tung. Nuff said.

Rebellia · 04/10/2018 22:27

Tortiss - YABU, it's definitely tortuss

Tung - YANBU

Tiredtomybones · 04/10/2018 22:27

Tor-toys and Tong. Non-native speaker of English, living in the south east with northern DH.

wtfisgoingonherenow · 04/10/2018 22:36

Tor-tuss
Tung
Scon (rhymes with John, not Joan!)

SE but family originally NE so am frequently told I am wrong by colleagues who are all local/grown up in SE

Scotinoz · 04/10/2018 22:57

I'm Scottish, and it's 'tung' and tor-tuss'.

Pour and pore are the same, but paw and poor are quite different!

SleepingStandingUp · 04/10/2018 23:00

Our and are definately don't sound the same, I ain't posh enough. Our has two syllables.

Munchmallow cos I have the smarts!! You learn with definitions and similar endings

Pour
Your
Four
Pour a drink into your four cups

Paw
Raw
Saw
Law
You broke the law when you made you paw raw with the saw

nancy75 · 04/10/2018 23:15

My tor tusks doesn’t really have much of a t in the middle

Can’t even manage to say tung any other way ( dp giving me weird looks as I try it)

IAcceptCookies · 05/10/2018 07:27

Scotinoz where are you from? I have all the same pronunciations as you except tortoise... definitely tor-toys in Fife! Smile

derxa · 05/10/2018 08:05

tortoyz and tung I've never heard another pronunciation of tongue though.

Agentornika · 05/10/2018 08:09

I'm in the North (Manchester) and in all honesty I've never heard any friends/family/colleagues pronounce it tung - it's tong here.

I say tawtoyse

Agentornika · 05/10/2018 08:11

*North West

InteriorLulu · 05/10/2018 08:18

Tortoys and tung here.

My Granddad used to say tong. Suspect that was a dialect or generation thing.

He spoke with the Oxfordshire burr which is now sadly disappearing.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/10/2018 08:39

Ugh. I was born in Southampton and moved to the Midlands aged 5. Unbelievable as it sounds, I was actually sent to speech therapy because all my teachers agreed I said 'four' and words like that in the 'wrong' way. My parents couldn't hear what they were getting at and, TBH, I think the speech therapist wasn't very sure either. I still remember my teacher routinely telling me off for saying words 'wrong'.

Later realised what memory says - Midlanders have very, very fixed ideas about vowels!

FWIW for me 'tongue' and 'tong' sound different; I say 'tor-toys' or 'tort-uss' interchangeably because of the moving to the Midlands thing, but 'tor-toys' will be how I grew up saying it at home.

derxa · 05/10/2018 08:43

My parents couldn't hear what they were getting at and, TBH, I think the speech therapist wasn't very sure either. I still remember my teacher routinely telling me off for saying words 'wrong'. Teacher sounds like a bit of a twit.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 05/10/2018 08:47

The funny thing is, he really wasn't, mostly. He was absolutely lovely to me and a great teacher in a lot of ways. He really was just convinced it was wrong.

QueenOfMyWorld · 05/10/2018 08:53

Tortuss for tortoise.Tung for tongue

Original poster
overnightangel · 05/10/2018 08:58

Yeah I’m from the north (Cumbria to be exact).
I’d never thought about the tortoise thing but I heard someone on telly say “tortuss” and it just sounded wrong!
Don’t get me started on the name MOORE (moo-err not ‘morrrr’) Grin

OP posts:
SleepingStandingUp · 05/10/2018 09:13

LRDtheFeministDragon how did you say four / he want you to say it?
I can only think of really heavy black country foo-a as nan alternative. And I'm a midlander

SleepingStandingUp · 05/10/2018 09:13

LRDtheFeministDragon how did you say four / he want you to say it?
I can only think of really heavy black country foo-a as nan alternative. And I'm a midlander

Swipe left for the next trending thread